


Diversion

by micehell



Category: Numb3rs
Genre: Fluff, M/M, With a little sex, humor with maybe a touch of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-08
Updated: 2006-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-12 03:22:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/486106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/micehell/pseuds/micehell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The writing on the chalkboard resolved itself to nothing but chalk, pointless and wrong.Charlie couldn't believe how terribly wrong it was.  Almost as wrong as Larry's singing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diversion

Charlie chased the line of thought across the blackboard. He was so close; it was almost perfect, almost there, almost.

"Na na nothing between us… hmm, no, that's not it. Na na na deep inside again na na…"

Gone. The writing on the chalkboard resolved itself to nothing but chalk, pointless and wrong. Charlie couldn't believe how terribly wrong it was. Almost as wrong as Larry's singing.

Which was still going on, Larry occasionally throwing out another "Na" while rapidly writing in the notebook he was hunched over.

"Larry, you're humming."

The blue eyes had the same vague look that Larry got when he was lost in eleven dimensions, before they focused back on the notebook. "Yes, well I haven't figured out all the words yet."

Charlie started with, "No, that's not…" but he trailed off, considering that Larry was humming again and obviously not listening. "Forget it," he said mostly to himself.

He turned back to the blackboard, trying to force it to transmute into the answer he was seeking, but his mind was focused far too squarely on the puzzle behind him. He put the chalk down, hoping the disconnect would refresh his thoughts, before turning his attention to the other mystery in the room, sitting close as he looked at the page overflowing with truly appalling lyrics, Venn diagrams, mark-outs, and doodles that Larry had been messing with since he'd arrived almost an hour before. "Please would make a good rhyme for knees in that one line there."

Charlie felt Larry's laugh through the shoulder touching his, though the sarcasm only carried with the sound. "Please and knees? I don't even want to know where your mind was going there, Charles. I'm trying to write a soulful ballad, not the soundtrack to an adult movie."

"Okaaaay… 'nonlinear dynamics and chaos' is a line from a soulful ballad?"

Larry face went from irritated to resigned before he crossed the line out. "You're right; that was just pitiful. But I'm really not sure what to put between these two other phrases." He looked hard at the sheet, apparently trying to will it into soulful ballad-ness. "Maybe I should just leave the nas in. Sort of like _Land of a Thousand Dances_ , only with more heartbreak and despair. And perhaps a few less nas."

Charlie let his laugh push back against Larry's shoulder, liking the description. He was clueless about the song referenced, but Larry often used allusions he couldn't catch. "Why are you writing a song, anyway?"

And for the first time since he'd interrupted Charlie during his 'garage time,' Larry looked at him directly, a tiny quirk of lips, his Mona Lisa smile, gracing his face. "The longer I'm around you, Charles, the more it comes to me that man cannot exist by science alone."

Ignoring the bait for once, Charlie let the vague insult pass, waiting for the real explanation.

Larry's hands waved over the notebook as he spoke, conducting an invisible orchestra to whatever answer he saw there, his voice full of the same earnestness it got when he talked about things not quantifiable. "Da Vinci was both a scientist and an artist. Michelangelo's studies of human anatomy actually helped the medical sciences, such as they were. There was a time, Charles, when people didn't separate science and the arts. When all disciplines were celebrated with equal fervor and all knowledge was held in equal regard. Well, mainly, anyway. I… I just want…" he trailed off, his usual eloquence disserting him.

But Charlie understood. He'd sometimes struggled against the flood of numbers, against the fear that they were all he was good for. "You don't want to feel limited by what you know. To what you've trained for or experienced."

Larry nodded broadly, looking like a mildly demented bobble-head. "You can still surprise me, even after all these years. And you're exactly right. I don't want to be limited to, or limited by, what I already am."

Charlie might have been insulted - again - by Larry's surprise at his, admittedly, unusual emotional intuition, but his mathematic one had just kicked in, and he went back to his blackboard, Larry's humming weaving comfortably through his thoughts as he once again tried to capture them with chalk.

::::::::::

The next day, Charlie felt like history was repeating itself, in that everything was exactly the same. Well, it was the next day, so that was different. And it was earlier in the day. And in Charlie's office, and he was working on a whiteboard instead of his chalkboard, and… okay, Larry was still humming and Charlie was still trying to solve his problem, those two things were exactly the same.

Charlie wasn't making a lot of progress on his problem, however, considering that about every two minutes Larry asked -

"Charles, what do you think of the word turgid?"

A question. Though some of them were odder than others, and Charlie tried not to think too hard about the word turgid, because that was only going to lead to bad places. Or good places, actually, though not so much when he was in his office, where anyone might walk in. So, "I really don't think about that word all that often, Larry."

Larry nodded wisely, his lips pursed and his voice thoughtful. "Hmmm. Well, that explains some things."

"Hey!" Charlie cringed a little inwardly, thinking his indignation might have carried more weight if his voice hadn't cracked. "What exactly are you trying to imply there, Fleinhart?"

Projecting innocence so thick it was almost dripping off of him, Larry offered, "I believe I was implying that your vocabulary really could use some work, Mr. Eppes. What did you happen to infer?"

"Vocabulary. Right." Though, when Charlie thought about it, with Larry you could never tell. He very well might have been insulting Charlie's vocabulary rather than his sex drive.

But Charlie really needed to get back to work, and he couldn't afford to be distracted, so he put inference, implication, words he wasn't going to think about, and Larry out his mind, and turned back to the whiteboard, focusing down.

He'd actually made it through five minutes of peace when Larry broke the silence with, "If you were a woman, and perhaps not quite a young woman anymore, and someone compared you to a quasar, would you read that as a reference to power, or would you see it as a comment about your age?"

Charlie actually thought about it for a moment before he realized what he was doing. He shook his head in a futile attempt to get Larry out of it, but it was years too late for that. "I would think that the person who'd made the reference was more than a little crazy, is what I would think. Larry, you're becoming obsessed with this song. I really think you need to find another hobby."

Larry sank his head on his hands as he looked sadly at the heavily crossed-over sheet he'd been writing on. "You're probably right. Some of us were obviously just not meant to be the next Barry Manilow."

Shuddering at the thought of more than one Barry Manilow, Charlie used a spit-wet finger to wipe away the bad equation that Larry's interruptions had provided. Well, maybe his own apparently malfunctioning brain had something to do with it. Hopefully now things could go back to normal, where his brain actually produced answers and Larry interrupted him about normal things. Well, normal for Larry, anyway.

But, "I've been considering moving from verse to prose, anyway. They say you should write what you know, but I would imagine that fairly familiar with would work as well, at least for fiction, wouldn't you think? Because I have this idea, which could potentially be a bestseller in the making, once I have the whole thing worked out, anyway. It's a mystery series featuring a college professor who's consulted by the FBI."

Charlie nervously ran a hand through his hair, forgetting about the dry-erase marker and accidentally adding to one already prominent eyebrow, wondering how he could tactfully give his opinion about Larry's proposed project, but eventually he just went with his usual graceless honesty. "Larry, no one's going to be interested in the adventures of someone like you or me."

Larry's head sank lower, the weight pushing his cheeks up almost to the level of his eyes, the lips bowing suspiciously towards a pout. "Yes, well, considering that I can barely hold the interest of my own students, even while wielding a fair amount of power over their GPAs, I think you might be right." His sigh cut off midway, face going excited as something occurred to him. "But now humor… well, everyone likes to laugh, right? Maybe something in the science-fiction genre, only funny and with more accurate physics than you generally find."

Charlie figured he had to stop this train of thought before Larry started trying to test jokes on him; he really needed to get to work, and with the way things were going, that was looking less likely all the time. "You know what, Larry, I'm thinking maybe you should put the whole hobby thing on hold for a while. Maybe do something fun, like take a little vacation. Far away from here."

Larry, apparently, wasn't going to fall into any inferences, because he ignored the last bit in favor of what came before it. "Well, it _has_ been a while since I traveled for any reason that wasn't work related. But I wouldn't have any idea on where to go."

Surprised that his suggestion was being taken seriously, Charlie had to think quickly about what came next. He moved over to the desk, playing with some papers there to give himself more time, sitting on a corner when inspiration came. "You could go to Seal Beach like Dr. Alder and Professor Martin did last year. I'm pretty sure I remember hearing them say it was a lot of fun; like the Riviera, but no so crowded."

Running a hand idly through his hair, drawing the tight curls out to a surprising length, Larry wrinkled his face as he thought. "Yes, they did say it was quite lovely. But then both of them became pregnant while they were there, and though I know I said I wanted children, I really don't think I'm quite willing to take that risk."

Charlie kicked at the chair Larry was sitting in, laughing. "Very funny."

But Larry just gave him a confused look and a confused, "What?"

"I'm not falling for it. I know you're joking." And of course Larry was joking, because there was no way he was that oblivious.

Except that Larry was still looking confused, and Charlie was beginning to wonder. But, no.

Still. "You are joking, aren't you?"

Larry managed to keep a straight face for about a second longer before he started laughing, which made Charlie smile, even if it was a little embarrassed. One day he would be impervious to the bewildered act, if only because Larry would eventually run out of scenarios to play it in.

"Exactly how long am I going to have to pay for that one joke? But, okay, no vacations to Seal Beach for you. I'd hate for you to become an unwed father."

Larry's face lit up all of a sudden. "Hey, now that would make a great story. A science-fiction mystery series about a college professor who consults with the FBI, and who, through some wildly improbably accident with a colleague, becomes the first pregnant male. That definitely has bestseller potential."

Charlie turned back to the whiteboard, determined not to fall for it again.

However. "You are joking, aren't you?"

::::::::::

Chemical and electrical impulses in his brain mapped to chalk and slate with kinetic energy, mapped to algorithms in ones and zeros, an electrical stream from state to state, circling from energy to energy like some odd extension of the first law of thermodynamics.

Of course, all that really mattered to Charlie at the moment was that he'd solved his problem. He didn't want to trace the path of the solution at this point, as the actual following along it had just about done him in. Too many late nights, too few breaks. If it hadn't been for Larry and his many distractions, Charlie would have completely lost the last couple of days to work. Now all he wanted was sleep.

But all thoughts of _sleeping_ on his bed flew out the metaphorical window when he found Larry sleeping on his bed. Well, some of the thoughts of sleeping on his bed went, though the fatigue still hung like weights around him.

His father must have let Larry in before leaving on his date with… Donna, and why was that name so hard to remember? Shaking off the wayward thoughts, Charlie wondered how long Larry had been waiting for him.

He didn't make much of a Sleeping Beauty, with his hair being pushed out of its usual order, his face scrunched into the pillow, and, yes, just the slightest hint of drool at the upturned corner of his mouth, but Charlie still wanted to kiss him.

"Did you do it?" Sleep-bright eyes squinted at him.

For a moment Charlie thought he meant the kiss, and he wondered how he had missed doing it, but then his brain started clocking again, and he nodded. "Yeah, they have what they need." He grinned. "No thanks to you and your distractions."

Larry yawned, his body arcing up in a long stretch that made Charlie feel just a little bit less tired. "You like my distractions."

Which, yes, he sort of did, but still, he wasn't going to just admit to it. "Turgid?"

"Frankly, Charles, I was beginning to wonder there if I'd turned invisible… which would be a great story. Maybe something about finding the right sort of substance, something that light wouldn't reflect against, but rather bend around… maybe chemically seed someone so that they could secrete it… you know, I really think that might make a-"

Charlie valiantly managed not to roll his eyes as he cut Larry off. "Potential bestseller. Larry, just no. No one would be interested in a story like that."

The breath behind the sigh pushed Larry's chest up, causing Charlie to feel even a little less tired than before. "Yes, you're probably right." He paused, his eyes holding Charlie's. "You know I would never disturb you on a real deadline, where time was truly crucial, right?"

And Charlie did know that, especially considering how many times Larry had helped him out, totally focused on the goal, in those types of situations. "Yeah, I know."

"That being said, you do need to learn, or not so much learn as accept, that distractions aren't always a negative thing where work is concerned. Sometimes humans are at our most creative when we're relaxed and enjoying ourselves."

Thoughts of enjoying himself were warring impulses in Charlie's mind, the desire to sleep versus his desire for… other things, and he smiled. "Are you advocating sex as a brainstorming exercise?"

Larry waggled his eyebrows a bit, giving an exaggerated leer. "There's more to life than solving equations, Charles."

"Like your supposed music?"

The leer deepened into a frown. "Yes, well, I'm surprised you even remember that, considering how intent you were to ignore me. Apparently up to and including sending me packing, all the way to Seal Beach, no less."

Charlie knew the frown was fake. Mostly. Still. "Make it up to you?"

The frown faded, giving way to sly consideration. "Well, you could try I suppose." The _suppose_ was drawn out, as if Larry were only agreeing reluctantly, even as he spread his arms out invitingly. "Perhaps you could try paying me the same kind of attention you give your numbers."

Charlie looked at the lips he'd wanted to kiss since he'd walked into the room, that he'd wanted to kiss years before he'd even been truly aware of why he wanted it. He saw the numbers in the bow, in the slope of the bottom lip tipping over into Larry's chin; mundane, arcane, and everything in between. "The curve of your lips…" He trailed off, not knowing how to explain in words what was so obvious in math.

"Are you quoting Wilde to me, Charles? There might be hope for you yet."

And he was lost again. Had he been quoting someone? He couldn't remember a mathematician named Wilde, but maybe it was something he'd read in school. "Wilde who?"

"Never mind, I suppose that was too much to ask-" The end cut off as Charlie gave into want, as he pulled the words into his mouth, sinking onto the bed beside Larry, pushing him back into the mattress until their bodies were one line of contact down the length of the bed. The kiss was long and soft; no goal, all sensation.

Lips flushed and swelling, color high on his cheeks, his breath warm and fast against Charlie's skin, Larry was color, light, matter, planes defined by numbers, but not fully described by them, and Charlie could feel the pull, the need to understand something that would always be just slightly out of reach.

But not completely, not out of touch, small hands, still warm with sleep, tracing maybe-random patterns across his back, down his arms. The touch was soft, sleep still catching at Larry's eyes, the gravity of it weighing Charlie down, but he'd missed this connection, and he couldn't resist taking just a little more.

The rasp of tongue down the prickling curve of Larry's jaw made him squirm and give a contented sigh, his neck stretching back in invitation. Charlie traced the hollows and hills, feeling the vibration that ran its length as Larry murmured his approval.

He tongued one hardening nipple through Larry's shirt, rubbing the wet cotton into it even as his hands moved to buttons, peeling back layers to get to the flesh beneath. The nipple still tasted vaguely of cotton and soap after it was free of the cloth, but even more strongly of Larry.

Charlie felt fingers in his hair, getting caught in the kinks. They slid slowly through, undoing the loose knots without pulling, rubbing the slick strands between them, and Charlie almost lost what he was doing in the pleasure of it, feeling the tug on his scalp as sensation all the way down his back. But the divide down the middle of Larry's chest, the rounded swell over his abdomen, the sink of his navel were all calling to be tasted, and he let his fingers follow the slick path downward.

Larry's breath was coming faster, his erection pressing up against his pants, but he was liquid, still and deep, beneath Charlie's touch. Even his "You always have had such a facile tongue" was a whispered drawl, content in the moment.

The siren song of sleep was still calling to him, but Charlie couldn't resist taking in the smells and tastes, couldn't resist the need to reconnect after his self-imposed exile. He had to wonder at what drove him at moments like that; what would make cold, beautiful numbers seem more important than warm, beautiful flesh? Whatever it was, he could only be thankful that Larry seemed to understand, and that Larry was always there when he found his way back.

Pushing aside more cotton, Charlie mapped his way down Larry's cock, feeling it push at his mouth, and he didn't tease, taking it in, sucking gently, one hand stroking the fuzz-soft sac already pulling tight, too tired for complicated. The little noises from the back of Larry's throat certainly seemed to indicate that it felt good enough, the hands in his hair were obviously struggling to pet rather than grip. Charlie's cock was only taking the barest interest in the proceedings, but it all felt so good anyway, and he hummed contently, riding out the thrust and flood of Larry's release; bitter, sweet and comfortingly familiar.

His hair was being pulled lightly, encouraging him up, drawing his head down to Larry's chest, both of them falling together towards sleep.

Chemical and electrical impulses in their brains mapped by touch to flesh with kinetic energy, mapped to excitement and release, a liquid stream from state to state, circling from energy to energy, an extension of them, and it was all that really mattered to Charlie as he drifted off to sleep.

/story


End file.
